Like many of you who are serious Festival fans and participants, I finished my Tier 3 Yule Festival deed a few days ago. In a previous post I had stated my reservations about the huge grind required for the War-steed Appearance traits, and now that I have completed it I can recount my experience. I have completed the deed on 4 of my characters, a 5th is still in progress. The festival has been extended until January 3rd allowing for two extra days to complete the deed, so I might even be able to complete my 5th character as well. To be fair, I think the amount of quests (120 total) required for this deed is very reasonable and commensurate with the reward. What makes it hard is the time limit in which the deed needs to be completed, especially considering the Christmas Holiday. Personally, I do not enjoy this kind of time pressure at all. I think the duration of this festival is way too short for casual players with a normal and healthy family life. I managed to do it, but it required me to arrange my real life schedule around my game, rather than the other way around. That is not the way I like to consume my game time. To sum up my opinion: the requirements of 120 quests is fine, the available time in which to do it is not.
I know there are Festival Tickets available for reset quests, but I leave those out of the equation as I would never consider buying them.

The good news is that I now have these beautiful Wintry Yule War-steed cosmetics and I think they are absolutely gorgeous! My main character Hymne (minstrel) has clad her golden steed in these garments and they look stunning. My little hobbit Mayrose (burglar) has dyed hers in yellow and that looks amazing as well. You can check out that appearance on warsteeds.com. It’s a shame the tail on the ponies is currently bugged and doesn’t dye. Just like war-steed leggings cannot be dyed black nor white. Please /bug any anomalies that you encounter as the bugs seem to be different depending on race and gender even.
If you are interested in war-steed appearances you may want to take advantage of this weekend’s Class Mount sale, as a few selected steeds got a 25% discount.
Another bit of cosmetic news, as some of you have already noticed, the mannequins that stand near the various armour vendors are wearing new outfits since Update 9. Two of those outfits were assembled by me. Mind you that these outfits were combined out of already existing lotro store items, as such was Turbine’s requirement when they asked me to redesign them. What is more interesting though (from a cosmetics point of view) is that the other two mannequins are currently wearing Northmen Armour (hunter and champion). These are highly sought after pieces, so you may want to consider purchasing those in the store rather than grinding out the medallions of the Northmen needed to purchase those pieces.
I suspect that this post is my last 2012 outfit. I’m looking forward to making some more in 2013!

Chest: Gossamer Dress, gold dye (skirmish cosmetic)
Back: Hooded Cloak of the Dove, gold dye (lotro store cosmetic)
Shoulders: Shoulders of the Wall-warden level 65, gold dye (skirmish camp Classic vendor)

War-steed:
Wintry Yule Halter, gold
Wintry Yule Caparison, gold
Wintry Yule Leggings, gold
Wintry Yule Saddle
Mane/tail: tan
Hide: bay